ht be saved by such treatment, but I venture to doubt whether
they are worth saving. As for Leonarda, she has apparently no cause for
encouragement. But she perseveres, heedless of obloquy, as long as her
own affections are disengaged. She presently falls in love, however,
with a young man named Hagbart Tallhaug, who has insulted her and is now
engaged to her niece, Agot. Hagbart is the nephew of the bishop of the
diocese, who, after much persuasion is induced to receive Agot, on
condition that her aunt will remove from the district and demand no
recognition from the family. Having been informed of these conditions,
Leonarda calls upon the bishop, uninvited, and vainly remonstrates with
him. The young people are, however, unwilling to accept happiness on the
terms offered by his reverence. At this point a new complication arises.
Hagbart who had loved in Agot a kind of reflection of her aunt's
character and manner, being now thrown into the company of the latter,
discovers his mistake and transfers his affection to Leonarda. Exactly
wherein the newness of Leonarda's type consists we are not fully
informed, but we are led to infer that she represents a purer and truer
humanity than the women bred in the traditions of feudalism, with their
hypocritical arts and conventions. She is not meant to be seductive, but
radiant, ravishing.

There is a candor in her speech, and an almost boyish
straightforwardness, for which she is not indebted to nature but to the
stanch idealism of her creator. She is, however, on that account no less
impressionable, no less ready to respond to the call of love. She
struggles manfully (or ought I not, in deference to the author's
contention, to say "womanfully") against her love for Hagbart, and at
last has no choice but to escape from the cruel dilemma by accepting the
bishop's demand. Though she cannot conquer her affection for the young
man, she believes that he will, in the course of time, return to Agot,
as soon as she is out of his way. The author evidently believes the
same. It is a hard lot to be a man in these later dramas of Bjoernson.

With a slight violation of the chronological sequence I shall discuss "A
Glove" in this connection, because of its organic coherence with
"Leonarda." They are the obverse and reverse of the same subject--the
cruelty of society to the woman of a blemished reputation, and its
leniency to the man.

To those who worship the conventional ideal of womanly in